In the Hot Seat — RB Jon Cornish. Yes, the battle of the quarterbacks will draw the most attention, but for the Stamps to have any kind of success, they need Cornish gaining significant chunks of yardage like he was when he took over the starting job last year.

This will be an offensive slugfest, underpinned by quarterbacks with hurt feelings. Even if Hamilton’s Henry Burris smiles when he talks about “buddies” in Calgary, he wants to beat Stampeders coach John Hufnagel. Burris has been reborn in Hamilton (15 passing touchdowns, and 32.4 points per game, which lead the league), and beating the coach who emphatically ended his seven years in Calgary would be more satisfying than claiming first place in the East, no matter how good Burris is at talking like a team player.

The Hamilton Tiger-Cats have already proven a 37-year-old quarterback can look young and dangerous again. Henry Burris, reinvigorated by head coach George Cortez’s offence, leads the CFL with 15 touchdowns.

And the Ticats have also shown some mettle, surviving claims of a dressing-room rift in Week 3 to reel off wins over Toronto, Montreal and Saskatchewan. A win against Calgary on Thursday night and the Ticats will take sole possession of first in the East Division.

But is Hamilton’s defence prepared if the encounter with the Stampeders explodes into a shootout?

Kevin Glenn, the Stampeders quarterback and former Ticats starter, has the league’s highest pass completion percentage (70.3%), while Hamilton allows the third-most passing yards per game (310.8). Running back Jon Cornish ran for minus-one yard against B.C. two weeks ago, but Hamilton allows the most rushing yards in the league (127.6). And slotback Nik Lewis has scored a league-high six receiving touchdowns. If he cannot run or twist around you, he will jump over you.

Quarterback Kevin Glenn and the Calgary Stampeders have yet to win a game on the road, so what better place to do it than the field he called home for the past three seasons.

The Stamps meet the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Thursday at Ivor Wynne Stadium in a CFL match-up featuring the first meeting between veteran quarterbacks who switched spots in the off-season. Watch it live on TSN and TSN Mobile TV at 7pm et/4pm pt.

But Glenn doesn't think his familiarity with Ivor Wynne will give him much of an advantage over Ticat pivot Henry Burris – the man for whom he was traded.

"He (Burris) still has the crowd behind him," said Glenn, 33, who left Hamilton as a starting quarterback only to join Calgary as the back-up to Drew Tate. But when Tate went down with a shoulder injury earlier this season, Glenn was back at the helm.

"You know (the crowd's) going to come out and they're going to boo me," he said. "You know they're going to get loud and try to disrupt the offence. That's what they do. But at the same time, I think it's going to be a good game . . . Once we cross those lines, I'm the enemy now. It doesn't matter if I've played here before. But it's all gonna be in fun."

A few weeks ago, Hamilton Ticats head coach George Cortez found himself at a local Tim Hortons restaurant at 5 a.m. when his cell-phone started ringing.

“I thought, ‘Who the heck is this???’ ” related Cortez on Wednesday, a day before his 3-2 Ticats play host to the 2-3 Calgary Stampeders at Ivor Wynne Stadium.

“It was Huff. And that’s three in the morning in Calgary. Just saying hi.”

Asked about the story a while later, Hufnagel laughed at the memory.

“I thought he’d be in the office, and he’s out there getting doughnuts!” said Hufnagel, who had Cortez as his offensive co-ordinator for three years, and also worked with Cortez when both were assistants under Wally Buono in the 1990s. “I was a little disappointed when I found out where he was.”

In actual fact, Hufnagel was up so early because he was going through one of his fairly regular bouts with sleeplessness, and this has been another one of those weeks, truth be told.

Hufnagel has plenty on his mind as he tries to get the Stampeders back to the .500 level despite the following hard, cold facts:

Anthony Parker has been dealing with mixed feelings for the first five weeks of the Canadian Football League season.

On the one hand, the former University of Calgary Dinos star receiver has enjoyed watching his fellow 2011 CFL first-round-pick receivers Nate Coehoorn with the Edmonton Eskimos and Marco Iannuzzi with the B.C. Lions make some big plays this season with their respective teams after biding their time as rookies last year.

On the other, Parker has been yearning for the opportunity to show there’s a reason the Calgary Stampeders made him the first receiver taken in last year’s Canadian talent-grab.

After five games as a healthy scratch, Parker will get that chance on Thursday at Ivor Wynne Stadium.

“I was really excited,” said Parker, 22, on Wednesday. “I found out partway through practice on Tuesday. I went through most of the practice thinking that I wasn’t going to be playing, so I’m pretty excited about it and happy to get on the field for the first time.”

Parker will back up Arjei Franklin on Thursday as starter Johnny Forzani was placed on the one-game injured list because of a nagging flu bug. The speedy Okotoks product made six catches last season in limited playing time, but had yet to dress for a game this year with Forzani and Franklin both healthy.

Meanwhile, Coehoorn (also a former Dino) with 13 catches and St. Francis grad Iannuzzi with a dozen grabs have taken advantage of their opportunities.

Like any good offensive lineman, Peter Dyakowski always has the back of his fellow men in the trenches.

So, you have to respect the take of the Hamilton Tiger-Cat veteran, not to mention Canada’s Smartest Person after he won that title on a CBC show last spring, when it comes to January’s big trade between his team and the Calgary Stampeders.

“We traded Kevin Glenn for Tim O’Neill,” said a smiling Dyakowski, referring to Hamilton’s right guard. “And they threw in Henry.”

The truth, of course, was a little different. O’Neill actually signed as a free agent with the Ticats, and, in fact, the Ticats sent one of Dyakowski’s old linemates, Mark Dewit, to Calgary along with Glenn in return for Henry Burris.

But why let the facts get in the way of a good story? And, yes, this is a good story.

“Oh, it makes for a great storyline,” agreed Dyakowski. “The big transaction of the off-season and it’s the first time we’re meeting head to head. They all want to beat their old teams. Everyone does. I’m from Vancouver, so I always like to beat the Lions.